Thinness and rear panel details belie the "extreme simplicity" of the iPad.

Samsung has won a ruling in UK High Court that its Galaxy Tab tablets do not infringe on Apple's European registered community design for the iPad. While the court ruled that some physical differences exist, Judge Colin Birss on Monday implied that Samsung's designs were just too different to be confused with Apple's now-iconic iPad.

Samsung's tablets "do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design," Judge Birss said during the court's announcement, according to Bloomberg. "They are not as cool."

Apple is suing Samsung for allegedly copying the design of the iPad for its Galaxy Tab tablets in the US and Germany, but Samsung filed a lawsuit in the UK to have its design declared as non-infringing for two reasons. One is that UK courts tend to side with alleged infringers over patent holders. The other is that a ruling in its favor could have an impact on the decision by German courts. According to EU rules, courts in EU jurisdictions must at least consider rulings on similar cases in other EU countries, though they aren't required to make identical rulings.

Samsung was predictably pleased with the ruling. "Should Apple continue to make excessive legal claims in other countries based on such generic designs, innovation in the industry could be harmed and consumer choice unduly limited," the company said in an e-mailed statement to Bloomberg.

Apple is sticking to its position that Samsung is a copycat, however. "It's no coincidence that Samsung's latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad," Apple spokesperson Alan Hely said. "This kind of blatant copying is wrong and, as we've said many times before, we need to protect Apple's intellectual property."

This is actually a positive note for Samsung. They can point to the judge's ruling and comment as affirmation that their stance -- their tablets are non-infringing and easily discernible from their competition -- to appeal the U.S. injunction. With a similar affirmation from Germany, Samsung can call Judge Koh's fitness into question in the court of public opinion, which is a win-win for them.

This is such a joke. Of course they look the same. The design constraints are pretty simple and lead to a convergent design. Few of them are purely aesthetic features.

You want to:1. Maximize screen size2. Corners should be rounded so they don't break off and/or poke people3. Black boarder b/c it's the least eye straining4. People don't want bulky stuff, so it has to be thin.5. It's touch screen, so it really needs no buttons other than a power button/switch.

About the only major thing left is the color of the back side and the degree of corner rounding.

in my opinion the galaxy and the iPad look nothing alike except for the fact they bot use a tablet form factor. it has nothing to do with "cool" and everything to do with "they don't look the same, jackass." and software is part of the unit too the way i see it, as the iPad runs iOS and galaxy runs android (not easily changeable. and if they're both on, side by side, there's no way one can be mistaken for the other. not even a little.

if there is in fact any innovation that came out of this tablet market that was forced upon us, it's how many useless lawsuits between how many parties can occur en masse. i'm still waiting for the estate of gene roddenberry to lawyer up and hit all of them.

You mean a flat rectangle with a screen like those Pen Masters they used to make in the early 90's? (A few models didnt even have any other buttons on the front , just a screen and an indent for the stylus.)

Oh come on apple, this coming from the company that when it introduced its Powerbook with a hinge, connected keyboard on the lower space, and a rectangular screen on the upper. Clearly that design was already thought out, so it's a bit hypocritical to be fussy about this.

Now, if the powerbooks had no hinges and a triangular screen (which is woefully underutilized today IMO) then maybe they could argue that someone shouldn't be stealing functional designs.

About the only major thing left is the color of the back side and the degree of corner rounding.

The design of the back was a major part in why the court made the ruling (according to the bbc coverage I read.) Sure from the front it look like an ipad, but turn it over and it's clearly not. The judge also pointed out how much thinner the Samsung was.

I think Apple had a point when Samsung was trying to copy the icons and grid style home screen, but not so much now.

> Which is why Apple should never have been granted the design patent for copying the data pads from Star Trek TNG and 2001 A Space Odyssey.

OK, one can make reasonable arguments that Apple shouldn't have been granted a design patent for the iPad for a lot of reasons, but the 2001/TNG argument is stupid and needs to stop.

As nice as it is to be able to point to fiction to assert that there are no new ideas under the sun that premise will not hold up in court. There is no standard for the enforcement of design trademarks that looks to the use of a similar design in iconic media as a reason to reject a design trademark. On the other hand presenting a compelling argument that devices designed as a laptop without a keyboard will by their nature appear similar is fairly easy to assemble. It is a shame that Apple feels that it is in their interest to attempt to crush other platforms through legal proceedings as opposed to demonstrating the continued superiority of their product.

(Caveat: My household has a Galaxy Tab 10.1 and an iPad. When they're sitting next to each other no one has trouble telling the difference but when they are in their very similar 3rd party designed cases the difference is harder to see.)

To say nothing of the "extreme simplicity" of the Apple fanatics...Honestly, Apple has brought nothing new to the table other than massive marketing dollars and an endless series of lawsuits intended to hedge the competition out, rather than produce competitve products in a reasonable price range.

Oh, not you too. The actual ruling stated that the suit was dismissed based on approximately 50 examples of prior art, not because it wasn't cool enough.

Is it too much to ask to have some news with our news?

It's an attractive headline, and it's not taken ridiculously out of context like Ars' piece on the US Apple/Moto case (Posner and the 'animals' metaphor) to twist the meaning into something other than what the judge actually said. Nothing particularly onerous about it. It would have been nice to have some actual meat in the article instead of just floating it out there as if "not as cool" was some kind of actual legal criteria though.

Although those with a desperate enough personal need for Apple to "win" will be very entertaining as they try to spin this into a victory.

edit: Also entertaining are the fanboy/RDF comments about the judge. It doesn't matter if you LIKE the iPad or not or would ever use one, it doesn't change the fact that it's a slick device. I appreciate my PS3 for being a very cool and well-engineered device while still thinking it's at best middling video game system that's only really useful to me as a Blu-Ray player.

Is that the same thing as sticking one's fingers in one's ears and going "NA-NA-NA-NA I can't hear you"?

The point has been made previously in the comments, these things have to follow certain design features in order to be usable. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to see that tablets, just like flat screen TVs, would all start to look rather similar in a powered-down state from the front of the device.

This is such a joke. Of course they look the same. The design constraints are pretty simple and lead to a convergent design. Few of them are purely aesthetic features.

You want to:1. Maximize screen size2. Corners should be rounded so they don't break off and/or poke people3. Black boarder b/c it's the least eye straining4. People don't want bulky stuff, so it has to be thin.5. It's touch screen, so it really needs no buttons other than a power button/switch.

About the only major thing left is the color of the back side and the degree of corner rounding.

#2 doesn't require a bright metal trim ring, however. #3 is apparently untrue given that the iPad is also available in white and that multiple shades of gray are also available to reduce eye strain, as well as colors such as dark turquoise or dark red, both of which the human eye is relatively insensitive to.

#1, #4, and #5 are also all true, and are functional as opposed to decorative aspects. #3 is both functional and decorative.

This is such a joke. Of course they look the same. The design constraints are pretty simple and lead to a convergent design. Few of them are purely aesthetic features.

You want to:1. Maximize screen size2. Corners should be rounded so they don't break off and/or poke people3. Black boarder b/c it's the least eye straining4. People don't want bulky stuff, so it has to be thin.5. It's touch screen, so it really needs no buttons other than a power button/switch.

About the only major thing left is the color of the back side and the degree of corner rounding.

"Whatever concerns there were about Samsung possibly not being allowed to sell Galaxy Tabs in UK can now be put to rest. Apple's lawsuit against the Tab 7.7, 10.1 and 8.9 has been dismissed.

We are sad to say that patent infringement lawsuits have become the favorite tool in IT corporations' attempts to eliminate the competition.

Currently, Apple is the most relentless as far as lawsuit filing goes, to the point where more than one person has begun to call it a genuine patent troll, regardless of the wins and losses.

We lost count of its many courtroom debacles long ago, but recent events have not been going in its favor (with the obligatory exceptions, naturally).

To give a couple of examples, HTC one-upped it and even Kodak managed to squeeze a win.

Now, we are going back to the now infamous spat between Apple and Samsung, where the former keeps trying to ban the latter's slates.

The UK ended up not repeating the Australia incident, as we have taken to calling it. Rather than banning sales of the Galaxy Tab slates, the court decided there were more than enough differences between them and Apple's iPad.

In fact, it ruled that the differences were clearly visible, especially on the front panel, side profiles and the rear surface.

To give the court even more credit, it “dismissed Apple’s arguments by referring to approximately 50 examples of prior art, or designs that were previously created or patented, from before 2004.”

Knight Ridder (1994), the Ozolin (2004), and HP’s TC1000 (2003) were only three of those examples

“The court found numerous Apple design features to lack originality, and numerous identical design features to have been visible in a wide range of earlier tablet designs from before 2004,” the ruling said, according to Pocket-Lint.

Apple has yet to comment on the decision in any way, but we're certain they will press forward. Until such a time, the Galaxy tab 7.7, 10.1 and 8.9 will continue selling in the United Kingdom."

#2 doesn't require a bright metal trim ring, however. #3 is apparently untrue given that the iPad is also available in white and that multiple shades of gray are also available to reduce eye strain, as well as colors such as dark turquoise or dark red, both of which the human eye is relatively insensitive to.

#1, #4, and #5 are also all true, and are functional as opposed to decorative aspects. #3 is both functional and decorative.

A bright metal ring... Those infringing bastards! How dare they copy such beauty and perfection?

And just because there's a choice of colours (wow, wait, Apple provided a choice?) doesn't mean that #3 was untrue, it just means people would pay for it.

Oh, not you too. The actual ruling stated that the suit was dismissed based on approximately 50 examples of prior art, not because it wasn't cool enough.

Is it too much to ask to have some news with our news?

New here, aren't you? Within this otherwise well-written and fairly balanced tech website you will find a little sub-site called "Infinite Loop" which is basically an Apple fanboi site contained within Ars Technica. Since even Apple doesn't do something Earth-shattering every single day you will find many articles containing the word "rumor" and lots of speculation about Apple and their interaction with everything non-Apple.

You'll also often find Apple references sprinkled throughout the entire site in articles having nothing to do with Apple.

"They are not as cool" is probably one of the mildest comments I've ever seen about any other company in relation to Apple.

IL can still make for interesting reading, if for nothing else than insight into the thought processes of those completely devoted to the cult of Apple, especially in the comments section. Jacqui and some of the other staff writers will sometimes deliver articles that are less than favorable about Apple (overlooking Jacqui's glowing report of her visit to Apple HQ), but you'd be hard-pressed to find Chris doing anything but raving about how great they are.

One thing you can always count on is that, if at all possible, the slant will always favor Apple. That's just the way it is here. Sometime I would LOVE to find some unbiased news and reporting about Apple somewhere. Yes, the stories about Apple and Foxconn as well as a few others here went about as deep into painting Apple in a bad light as I've ever seen, but for the most part you're only going to find happy articles about how great Apple is and what they're doing to change the world around here.

Oh, and if you don't think that Apple is the be-all and end-all of computing you will find yourself branded a "hater." For the devoted there are only two types of tech people: Those that love Apple and "haters."

The issue at play here is (as an example) if a purse manufacturer is producing knockoffs of a designer purse, it is infringing on the designer's product. Nothing Samsung has done represents their product as being an iPad (it is not named, for instance, the iPaad or something similarly designed to mislead consumers).

Everyone who's buying a Samsung Galaxy Tab is very clear that they are NOT buying an Apple iPad. If Apple can make a case that the specifics of the circuitry inside are infringing their intellectual property, that's a more valid basis for a lawsuit.

Edit: also to note, the "appearance" of a tablet has MUCH more to do with the software interface than any physical feature. For all those "identify which is the Samsung" tests that were done in court, they should we redone with the screen turned on (or the back taken off and the circuitry exposed, a point I made above).